


Another Voronksy

by 13atoms (2Atoms)



Category: The Great (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt, Techincally romance, peter is a bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:09:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27643249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Atoms/pseuds/13atoms
Summary: Request: Voronsky!Reader x Orlo
Relationships: Orlo (The Great TV 2020)/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 7





	Another Voronksy

Marial snorted, not even stifling her laugh as Orlo looked away in embarrassment. Even Catherine looked politely amused, schooling her features. Perhaps for Leo’s expense.

“He sent you a Voronsky? Do you think he is trying to _kill you_?”

The coup had reached a boiling point, and this new rouge element was a cause for alarm, as much as it amused Orlo’s fellow conspirators. Peter had bidden him to take the woman, under the guise of making him ‘loosen up’. This would wind up as another of his usual slow tortures, Orlo was certain.

If nothing else, Peter was an expert in the psychological manipulation of those around him. Perhaps unconsciously, he could pick his supposed friends apart like a surgeon. The beautiful creature sat in his drawing room would be the next incision, Orlo could feel it.

He had run, justified only by the reality that he was already late to the coup meeting, when he saw her. The woman’s self-introduction was enough to raise his heartrate. That surname, synonymous with the finest indulgence of the flesh, could startle even the most promiscuous man.

“My sister,” Leo frowned. “She had not told me…”

“She is in my rooms!” Orlo’s pitch was near hysterical, and he vowed to pull himself together, if only to reduce how much Marial could laugh at him. “You can see her now, if you want to be reacquainted.”

Leo shrugged, taking everyone by surprise.

“We are not that close, anymore,” was the man’s only explanation.

“Why now?”

Catherine’s mind was already pulled from embarrassing Orlo, trying to unravel the Emperor’s plan which the Count suspected to be truthfully underdeveloped. Peter had no end game. He just liked _fucking with people_.

He could endure this. Could hope the woman would be as demure and kind as she had seemed, as willing to lie to the Emperor as Catherine’s Leo had been. Surely, not all of the Voronsky siblings could hold the lure Leo seemed to. They could be friends, faux-lovers if forced.

He would not let anything come from this.

*

Peter’s gift had been the best thing he had ever done for Orlo. She was kind and patient, funny, demanding no more of Orlo than he had to give.

After an installation in his quarters, and a quickly developed mutual understanding that both their necks were on the line should this coupling seem unsuccessful, Orlo began to look forward to returning home. Balls and banquets became more fun, with a friend by his side, a beautiful woman on his arm.

He was certain a few of the Lords and Ladies knew of his situation, that he was being patronized by the Emperor, his lover subsidised because he was _that pathetic_. But if Orlo cared what was being said behind his back, he would not have made it this long at court.

With the knowledge everything was to change soon, he savoured every good thing he could, the security and safety of sharing his bed and his life with a friend.

Soon he plucked up the courage to share his heart.

Then, his body.

And soon he wanted nothing more than to be staring into those eyes, to feel the agonizing clench in his chest when he watched his lover fall asleep, or wake him up in a panic and save him from lateness to an important meeting.

He had never had someone care for him so deeply, protect him like he mattered, whine when he was late back from his duty. Even as he smiled, gave excuses and feigned irritation, he could feel his heart leave his own custody.

It was hers entirely, held in her hands, delicate and vulnerable and completely safe with her.

All of his interest in the coup was lost, he followed Catherine’s words and attended her meetings solely for the sake of duty. Could the status quo truly be so bad, if Orlo had found such a desperate, all-consuming love within it?

But his lovesickness made him slow, at times. With happiness came fearlessness.

At a routine check-in with a visiting noble family Orlo had looked up from his notes to interrupt the Emperor, noticing a mistake as the increasingly-unhinged Emperor ranted at the eldest man of the clan. The room was filled with twenty-men, stood around as Orlo took notes at his desk, and the Count had been concealing yawns all morning after a rather delightfully planned evening with his love.

“I believe you are mistaking Lord Lebedev for Lord Kuznetsov,” he had interjected, stopping the Emperor in his tracks.

Heavy, deliberate footsteps approached his desk, and he looked up to meet the Emperor’s icy blue eyes. He shuddered at the closeness of the vile man, at the quiet rage simmering in his expression.

“Did you just… interrupt me?”

“No, sorry, I…”

“No! It must have been important if you felt like showing me up in front of our _guests_.”

Orlo panicked, swallowing and trying to force words out, holding his hands tight to himself protectively.

_Fuck_.

“Apologies sir, it is an easy mistake. And I see now you did not in fact make any error… accept my –”

With a childish swipe of his hand, Peter sent a pot of ink flying across Orlo’s desk, before turning back to the man and finally addressing him correctly. As Peter yelled, Orlo tried to tidy up his papers and clothes, the expensive black ink seeping into everything and staining irreparably. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach, knowing this was not the last of Peter’s repercussions.

In his daze of happiness and pleasant exhaustion, Orlo had forgotten the venom of the creatures he dealt with each day. Sweetness had numbed him, allowed him to become complacent.

He had forgotten the depth of the Emperor’s cruelty, until he arrived back that evening.

When he arrived in your shared rooms you were sat on his bed, a single welt mark across the whole right side your face. It was angry, red, and deeply deliberate in nature. Bruising and redness distorted your face, as you looked mournfully at him. From the look on your face, Orlo knew you had been told why you were being beaten.

“Its not your fault,” you had croaked out.

He didn’t believe you.

He joined you, clothes still ink stained but dried, and sat beside you in shock at your injury. You had cried quietly as Orlo held you close, tears welling in his own eyes as you cupped the damage to your cheek.

The injury healed slowly, made you hide in your shared rooms and abstain from going into the public corridors and banquet halls with the Count.

As he watched the mottling change with time, watched you toss and turn, unable to sleep with pain, Orlo’s blood boiled. He silently plotted, resolving to give his all to Catherine’s planning.

He finally had something to fight for.

*

The coup was hard won, not without sacrifice, and Orlo had spent a good few hours following Leo’s death tending his own wounds. Nothing granted him more peace than the knowledge his lover was safe, locked away in his room. She was a promise of their future together, a symbol his life could improve in ways he had never dared imagine. His books sat dusty around the room now, abandoned . He had no heart to feel regretful about it. He had spent enough of his youth with his nose buried in the pages of stories and philosophical discussions, and now he could live.

Despite his injuries Orlo bounced on his heels, almost laughing at himself for his sheer excitement to return back to a room he used to simply _exist_ in. He loved it now. The space where he had met you for the first time, fallen in love, imagined a future and a family, imagined a _happy ending_. He had made space for you, your clothes hung beside his, the bed moved away from the wall to allow him to sneak in beside you at night. After the longest meetings, after banquets which ran late into the night, you would always be there waiting for him.

His room had the same furniture, its same paintings and dingy lighting, and yet it felt brand new. Like a home. He longed to return to it when he was gone, no longer stopping to read in the dusty library or in corners of the garden.

No. You had changed his priorities. 

The space had been disrupted earlier that day, furniture carefully moved so that he could create a hiding space for you behind the tall shelves. It was well hidden, and he felt confident you would be safe there, protected from the atrocities of the coup. You had trusted him unquestioningly, and he could not wait to give you the all clear, and let you free to be held warm in his arms once again.

There was some blood outside the door, no doubt from the guards who had been stationed to watched the room, a small part of the river which had been spilled today. The idea of a bloodless coup felt even more laughable than it had all those months ago, when he first got wrapped up with Catherine, but it would be worth it.

For Leo’s sake, the fallen soldiers, the pounding in his head… all that pain had to be worth it.

He paid the crimson-red stain little mind as he passed it, as if it were merely spilled from a glass of fine red wine on a rowdy night. The lure of his chambers was too much, the woman hidden inside, the safety he was approaching.

Only when Orlo’s hand turned the door handle, finding it sticky with blood, did he realise something might be wrong.

He was a clever man in very few ways, Orlo supposed, but the Emperor was a verifiable genius when it came to hurting him.

The satin red of his sheets had been chosen by you, as Orlo finally replaced them. Ten years at the palace had left his previous bedcovers in a poor state, but the initiative to invest in a more comfortable set of sheets had only come when you mentioned their discomfort just weeks into sharing a room.

The colour disguised the blood which seeped across the bed now, blending with the expensive imported fabric, dripping onto the ground. Orlo stared around in horror.

The bookshelves were toppled, the expensive mahogany cracked by the force it had been ripped down with. He ducked to avoid the fallen shelves, rushing to see the room in its entirety, feeling his heart cut apart with every step.

On the bed lay a body. Your body, neck slit open viciously with a surgeon’s precision, pale dress seeped through with blood. Orlo dropped to his knees. 

A single, fresh welt was carved into your right cheek.


End file.
